Dear Editor:
What a horribly biased "advice" column by Kathy Lynn (How to Talk to Your Kids About the Teachers' Strike, June 18).
She uses the word "fair" in exactly the way the B.C. Teachers' Federation would like her to, ignoring that what is considered "fair" to teachers may be anything but fair to taxpayers, to parents and to the students themselves.
She apparently doesn't know, or chooses to ignore, that the overwhelming evidence from the most studied subject in education worldwide finds no evidence linking class size to learning outcomes (see author Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath, Chapter 2, "My largest class was twenty nine kids. Oh, it was fun.") What is most closely linked to learning outcomes is teacher skill, regardless of class size, something the BCTF prefers not to mention.
According to Lynn, we need to tell children that the teachers need to strike to make their hours of work and their vacation time more "fair," to make the rules more fair for "all the workers," and to "talk about salaries."
She ignores that the teachers already have more paid vacation time than any other workers and that the government (representing the taxpayers) has been talking about salaries all along, just not the numbers the BCTF considers "fair."
The bottom line is that the teachers are on strike for their own benefit only. Like all public sector workers they try to frame their strike in terms of defending the interests of their customers.That is not their mandate, nor should it be.
The Labour Relations Code of B.C. requires the BCTF to negotiate for the benefit of its members.
That is what they are doing, and it is time that we all stopped pretending that their objective is otherwise, including - perhaps especially - columnists who provide advice on parenting.
Franz Scherubl
North Vancouver
